


Putting Down Roots

by Corycides



Series: Tumbling On [14]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axe handles were no respecters of sword calluses. Bass leaned against the wagon, picking at fresh blisters while his ‘boss’ negotiated the lumber sale inside. Autumn had given up the ghost, along with the last of the leaves, in the last few days. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it was cold enough that Bass’ breath steamed and water had to cracked in its bowl in the morning. Despite his best intentions Bass couldn’t help but look the town over, picking out the weak spots he’d take advantage of or shore up. Depending on what side he was on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting Down Roots

**Author's Note:**

> Kawabiala prompt: Bass/Charlie pretending to be married.

 

Axe handles were no respecters of sword calluses. Bass leaned against the wagon, picking at fresh blisters while his ‘boss’ negotiated the lumber sale inside. Autumn had given up the ghost, along with the last of the leaves, in the last few days. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it was cold enough that Bass’ breath steamed and water had to cracked in its bowl in the morning. Despite his best intentions Bass couldn’t help but look the town over, picking out the weak spots he’d take advantage of or shore up. Depending on what side he was on.

‘Jimmy,’ his boss hailed him, coming out of the carpenters with a pouch of diamonds. A good quarter of them, Bass guessed, had already made it into his pocket. Debben was nothing if not self-serving. ‘We didn’t do quite as well as I hoped.’

Bass huh’d and smiled good-naturedly. ‘It happens. Markets, eh? What can you do.’

‘Exactly,’ Debben said, winking and slapping Bass on the shoulder with a meaty, horn-hard hand. ‘Not like you have any trouble staying warm at night, eh.’

He counted out Bass’ quarter of the fee. It was less than Bas had made in a night fighting in New Vegas. Before they left town, Bass was going to visit Debben and cut the difference out of the man’s fat ass. For now he kept an easy smile on his face as he tucked the diamonds into his pocket. He dropped past the bar, buying a whiskey and listening to the gossip eddying around the drunks. There was none. No word of a spate of Patriot-aimed bombs; no fat man with a fetish for bbq; no Miles.

Shit.

Bass paid and headed home. Walking down the wide streets, lined with clapboard houses and with swings in the yard and houses in the trees, he felt dizzy with deja vu. The winters were colder, the accents broader - but in some ways it was like he’d never let left Jasper. Sometimes he thought that this was his life would have been like if Emma had told him the truth, back then.

His house was dusty blue, with a bird house in the front yard and a small herb-garden with dusty, dried out for winter plants in place of a garden. He let himself in.

‘Hi, honey. I’m home,’ he sing-songed.

Charlie dropped the shotgun back to her hip. One hand pushed a loose tangle of hair back from her face. ‘Any news?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Miles will be back soon,’ Charlie said, her voice unwavering in its conviction. ‘It can’t be much longer.’

Bass shrugged his jacket off, hanging it over the end of the bannister. ‘If he’s not.’

She glared at him, her chin going up. ‘He will be. He’d not leave me.’

Her faith was touching, but after six months Bass wasn’t so sure. When Rachel and Miles had taken off to the Tower, looking for some new piece of magic science to deal with Aaron if they needed to, they’d only meant to be gone for a couple of weeks.

‘Whatever, ‘Daisy’. How was your day.’

Charlie pulled a face at him. ‘I understand now when Aaron never liked children. They’re horrible, why can’t I just hunt?’

‘Same reason I can’t punch people until they piss blood,’ Bass said sourly. ‘We have to look like a wholesome, all-Patriot couple. The lumberjack and his prudish schoolmarm wife.’

Charlie gave him a tight, sarcastic smile. ‘I’ll cook for you again, don’t think I won’t.’ She stamped past him, shotgun hooked over her arm. ‘I made you a sandwich, it’s in the kitchen. ‘Sweetie’.’

‘Is it poisoned,’ Bass asked.

She leaned over the bannister and smiled sweetly at him. ‘Maybe.’

* * *

 

‘The bandits are getting worse,’ Tandy Drake snapped, hands on hips and glaring at the mayor. ‘I heard they saw a war clan just three towns over. I thought the Patriots were meant to be fixing everything.’

Sweating his way through his party clothes, Harris scratched nervously at his sweat-dark collar. When he turned up for the Yuletide party, he’d expected bad music and strong liquor. Not politics. ‘These things take time,’ he placated. ‘Diplomacy…’

‘Diplomacy my ass,’ Tandy snapped. She swung around, fixing her glare on Bass. ‘What do you say, Gatz? You ready to talk to the war-clans when they come banging on your door?’

He shrugged and grinned, empty and eash going. ‘A whole war-clan, Tandy? I’ll talk as long as they let me.’

‘See?’ Harris said, relieved. ‘Jimmy knows the worth of being prudent, Tandy. The Patriots are doing their best for us. Everything will change soon.’

Tandy snorted. ‘There’s not a real man in this town. We should just marry our girls off to the lads from the Patriot garrison. At least there they’d be safe. I’ve seen a couple of the sergeants who had an eye for your Daisy, Gatz.’

He was still smiling, but something in his face made Tandy flinch and Harris take a step back. Apparently the Jimmy had slipped. Bass shrugged inwardly, maybe it was time people thought that Jimmy Gatz wasn’t quite the affable pushover he acted.

‘War clans and Patriots, all of them after my wife,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to sharpen my axe. Excuse me.’

He grabbed two glasses of punch off the table and went looking for Charlie. She was standing in the corner with a few of the young mother’s. Her smile was a lot less convincing than his, Bass decided. She was also disturbingly beautiful with her hair in loose curls and a pale blue dress that matched her eyes. The fact he’d bought it for her made him feel smug, despite the fact if he was still President Monroe he could have draped her in sapphires instead of cotton.

‘Daisy,’ he said, sliding an arm around her waist and tugging her close. ‘Having fun?’

Her fingers hooked into the back of his jeans. It wasn’t playacting. She was making sure he couldn’t run away.

‘So much,’ she said, taking her drink and gulping it down. ‘The ladies were just talking about how much they like having us in town.’

From the uncomfortable shifting, Bass suspected he wasn’t included in that. He grinned at them and stole Charlie away to the dance floor.

‘You can do better?’ he guessed.

‘Apparently I can’t depend on you sticking around,’ Charlie said, fingers flexing against his shoulder. ‘Like they know anything about us. Idiots.’

Bass spun her around, his hand tucked in the soft dip of her waist. ‘You think fake-me can’t do better?’

She glanced up at him, ‘I think fake-me can take care of herself.’

‘She doesn’t have to.’

Charlie smiled and clung tighter to him, resting her face against his chest.

* * *

 

It was a small box, about the size of his fist, swaddled in a swathe of colourful fabric. Bass sat up in bed, his back against the headboard and stared at it. ‘You got me a…present?’

Charlie shrugged, looking a little deflated, and wriggled back under the covers. ‘It’s Christmas. People would have thought it was weird if I didn’t get you anything.’

‘I didn’t-’

‘Get me anything?’ Charlie said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘…expect anything,’ Bass said. ‘The last time someone got me a Christmas present-’

He stopped. It had been Shelly. She’d told him she was pregnant one year, on what they’d been pretty sure was Christmas. A ribbon wrapped around her barely showing tummy. It was a bittersweet memory, but not one he wanted between him and Charlie today.

‘It was a long time ago.’

He unpicked the knot, finding a small pot of dark amber honey. Charlie fidgeted closer, fingers brushing over his thigh. The sex had been…unexpected. Tipsy kisses and performative public affection and the loneliness of lying to everyone else you know had just made it seem harder refrain than indulge. Sometimes Bass wondered what it would be like when this was over, and she could hate him again.

‘It’s that buckwheat honey you liked,’ she said anxiously. ‘I would have got you a knife, but Jimmy…’

Bass twisted the top off of and sniffed the thick, earthy aroma of the honey. He’d mentioned it to her once, when they were talking about what they missed. This had been a memory from a dirty weekend in a Saudi hotel, an indulgence for his sweet tooth.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You like it?’

He dipped a finger in the near black honey and smeared the sweetness over her lips, kissing it away as he assured her he loved his present. They spent most of Christmas morning in bed, only reluctantly getting up when the kids from Charlie’s class came knocking at the door. The goose burned and the ice cream was more sweet, chilled cream, but it was the closest thing to a happy Christmas Bass could remember. The smile when he opened the door to another knock was almost real.

‘Hey ‘Jimmy’,’ Miles said, leaning against the door. ‘Here to see ‘Daisy’.’

For a second, Bass wondered if he could kill Miles. Then Charlie barrelled past him into Miles, burying her face in his shoulder with silent, shuddering sobs. They folded around each other like a jigsaw that hadn’t known a piece was missing, and Bass didn’t care it was because they were family. He wanted them to stop.

Charlie had been right that Miles would always come back, but didn’t it count for anything that Bass had been the one to stay?

 

 

 

45

 

c

 

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